PDG Bonnie Sirower, this year’s PETS  Chair, first joined the Paterson Rotary in 1989 and was President of that club in 1996-97. She is now part of the Fair Lawn Sunrise Rotary Club. She served as District Governor in 2012-13 for Rotary District 7490 in Bergen, Passaic and Hudson Counties, New Jersey.

 

Prior to this year, she served as the Mid-Northeast PETS Coordinator for eight years as Marketing Coordinator. In 2014, she served as Rotary International President’s Representative to the District 6360 Conference in Western Michigan. She served as an Assistant Rotary Coordinator for Membership for Zone 32 from 2016-2019. She is now also serving as Treasurer for the International Fellowship of Rotarian Musicians and as Marketing Coordinator for Rotary Leadership Institute Northeast America.

Bonnie has been honored with both the Rotary Paul Harris Fellowship Award (x8) and her district’s Walter Head fellowship and was awarded Rotary International’s Service Above Self award in the Spring of 2010. In April of 2013, she was named as one of 12 White House Rotary Champions of Change. She is also a member of the RI Foundation Bequest Society.

She worked in the non-profit sector as a fundraiser for more than 36 years, raising more than $50 million for various non-profit groups. When Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey and New York at the end of October, Bonnie spearheaded Rotary’s efforts for disaster relief, coordinating communication to the world, raising more than $730,000 in cash, and overseeing collections and distribution of donated items to hurricane victims within a 300-mile radius where the hurricane had done the most damage.